


Ashes To Earth

by 56leon



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Angst, But then this happened, Fire, GaloLio is really only passive, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I'm so sorry I was supposed to write fluffy shit first, there can only be so much romance when one of them is dead, this is literally the unhappiest fic I've written in a longass time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 05:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20719022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/56leon/pseuds/56leon
Summary: He's not dead. He can't be dead, because there are no ashes on his lips and no smoke on his tongue.He's not dead, right?Right?





	Ashes To Earth

**Author's Note:**

> If you hate me for writing this, imagine how I must feel!
> 
> Recommended listening is, of course, ∧SHES from the Promare OST (the original, not the reprieve). Also, I refer to the promare incident as the Combustion because I'm a lazy fuck! This'll probably be the same through all of my Promare fics.
> 
> Also also, by the end of the movie's first week running, I'll have seen it in theatres THREE TIMES. This movie is so fucking important to me???? me @ myself why do you love this movie so much but then do........this.
> 
> **If you like my fics, feel free to talk to me on my writing-specific twitter [@kirilisms](https://www.twitter.com/kirilisms)!**

**** **** Just because the Burnish are gone doesn't mean the world is at peace. Anti-Burnish sentiment, friction between the displaced and displacers.....Burning Rescue still has quite a bit to deal with, even months after the Combustion.

Quite a bit, in this case, is the aftermath of an explosion in lower Promepolis.

Everybody's alive after the incident, everybody's up on their feet. Everybody, that is, except for one. Galo looks around, the other members of Burning Rescue following and scouring the area for any hint of their last - newest - member. Finally, a hint of pale green sways in the silent wind from behind a stack of debris, and Galo gives a relieved shout as soon as he spots it.

"Lio-!" Galo rushes over and moves rubble to more easily reach the other man, relief evident on his face- then freezes when he sees the marks all over his body. Scratches and cuts are the best of them; the worst are the burn marks that litter his bare arms, reminders that Lio is no longer impervious to the flames. Nothing is quite as painful, though, as the eyes that refuse to open into annoyed pink hues upon hearing Galo's voice. 

(No, they don't have the chance to open, not when there's nobody to hear Galo to begin with.)

Still, he tries, holding him close, trying to talk him out of whatever slumber he must surely be in because fire could never kill a Burnish-

The others converge in a loose semicircle, each of their respective breaths growing silent upon realizing the situation. "Galo," Aina is the first to speak, so softly that she's surprised he can even hear her. "Is Lio-"

Galo's eyes are filled with tears, even as he turns around and smiles shakily at her and the rest of Burning Rescue. "He's not, I swear-! I-I've seen them, Burnish.....they turn to ash when they die! He's still whole, he's still.....alive....."

His eyes directly meet Aina's, and she immediately averts her eyes; the others follow suit as his eyes sweep across his comrades. Nobody has the heart to remind him that the promare have been gone for months.

As they continue to avoid his gaze, he finally turns away from them and continues to cradle Lio against his chest. The only person willing to watch, willing to bear that pain, is also the only one to speak out against his subordinate, cold words trying to pierce a burning soul that refuses to stop blazing against reality. It hurts Ignis to speak almost as much as it hurts Galo to listen. "Galo. Lio is gone."

"He's not!" Galo snaps at Ignis without looking at him, voice sharper than any knife. "He's.....he's not.......Lio, come on, wake up......you gotta prove them wrong......"

Warm lips presses against cold skin over and over, wanting to once more deliver a flame that no longer exists. Promare or not, it worked last time, so it has to work this time. It  _ has _ to. It.....has to.

(But guarantees have always been gilded and rotten, so who's he to say today would be different?)

Nobody is callous, nobody is cruel. Nobody is heartless enough to stare at Lio's lifeless body and treat him as nothing more than an unfortunate casualty, but it's hard to do anything other than watch helplessly when the strongest firefighter you've ever known is crying and hoping he could, just once, be somebody else's phoenix. It's not delusion in Galo's actions, but denial, the aching refusal to accept reality as the truth and hide away in a world that he had destroyed.

The others start to move away, to mourn away from the mourner, but Galo can't even feel their presence disappear; the only one that matters, no matter how much he refuses to admit it, is long gone. He holds Lio's body close to him one last time, pleading with whatever gods the Burnish may have believed in that they would return Lio's flame in a world that would be cold without him. "Please......"

Void of ashes and smoke, the world leaves no reply.


End file.
